


A Cross Training Without Honor or Humanity

by ScribeFigaro



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeFigaro/pseuds/ScribeFigaro
Summary: Nothing was beautiful and everything hurt.
I got a fanfic prompt a while back that eventually morphed into this.  A weird little Miroku/Sango modern AU where Miroku's pickup-artist lifestyle is paid back to him in full measure.





	

Miroku Sagart pulled his BMW M3 into the nearest parking space at the local gym, using rapid but not inappropriate speed to ensure he captured the space well before the late-90s Toyota Camry approaching from the other direction could make good on the promise of its turn signal.

He heard only faintly the sound of some entitled twit shouting at him for stealing this pristine parking space - and could sense, and did not at all have to look at - the middle finger, perhaps two, directed at his back. Whistling the most recent radio song he'd heard - a catchy Nickelback song - he pulled a duffel bag out of his leather backseat and strode with authority to the front doors.

  
He directed his winning smile to the receptionist, not bothering to extract his membership card. They know him here.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Sagart,” she said. Normally, Ayame would take the member's card and swipe it on her reader, to verify the member was in good standing. But that was not necessary for this particular member. She gripped the edge of the desk, cautious not to betray any emotion. Afraid that she might reveal her own excitement, she set her mouth into an nonthreatening smile.

“I'm so glad you finally got my name,” he said.

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “Our manager extends his personal apologies to you regarding your dissatisfaction with our previous trainer. Your new personal trainer is our best, and she's put together a thorough program for you.”

“Excellent,” Miroku said. “I'm glad I finally got through. The previous trainer – that Higurashi girl – she was perfectly fine, let me be clear. But there was just no meeting of the minds, you know?”

He smiled, leaning in a bit too close to the receptionist.

“To really get the full measure of a training session, I really need that sort of connection. Mental, spiritual, _physical_. The physical connection is the most important of course. To really get the feel for a particular exercise, it really helps to -”

“Oh, most certainly!” Ayame chirped, wide eyed and grinning. “Yes, as far as the physical connection goes, this trainer is sure to deliver!”

Miroku's face betrayed his surprise.

“R-really? That kind of girl?”

“Absolutely. Sango Jaeger is our best MMA trainers, so you'll get plenty of sparring time with her.”

“Ah-” he said. “That's not quite what I-”

“Your session is at 7:15 sharp in Studio B, so you only have three more minutes, Mr. Sagart. If you arrive late to her training...”

Ayame caught herself.

“Actually, nevermind. Show up whenever. She's very flexible.”

Miroku nodded and made his way to the locker room; he was the customer, after all, and he'd show up when he was good and ready. He paid no attention to the gaggle of gym members and employees milling around the area just past the reception desk, and so did not notice a man around Miroku's age approach the receptionist.

“You checked his client file, right?”

“Yes, Inuyasha. All the liability waivers are in order.”

“Even the Sango form?”

This was the extra-special liability waiver for Sango's clients.

“He signed it last week when he was complaining about Kagome. I don't think he even read it.”

“Thank god. 'Show up whenever?' You know what she does to people who make her wait, don't you?”

Ayame smiled.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

\- - -

Miroku put no particular effort into changing quickly. His Armani suit deserved particular attention. Wooden hangers and such. A ritual, really, to put such excellent fabric in such an unworthy place. But within minutes he was dressed in comfortable UnderArmor, and ready to put forth the effort of crafting his fine male form.

He approached the sink, checking himself out in the mirror, and found it impossible for him to not smile. Sango stood no chance; even without thinking he was disarmingly attractive. Regardless, he would not go in empty-handed. Gripping the edges of the sink, setting his shoulders, he turned his head slightly upward and to the left, studying the excellent sharpness of his jaw, and the depth of cerulean orbs framed by raven tresses.

_Cerulean orbs,_ he thought. _Damn, that's good. I need to write that one down._

All in all, it was a knockout look. And not even at half-smolder. Ten percent smolder at best, barely a tick above resting smolder. Too dangerous to give Sango much more than that; with the sort of power Miroku had over women came the responsibility to not abuse it, or else his entire life would be nothing more than a gauntlet of thrown panties.

\- - -

Studio B was a sectioned off area on the second floor, technically a dance studio, but with padded floors. Separation from the treadmills and ellipticals were a series of floor-length windows, often with blinds obscuring the view within, but not today. Miroku did not notice this, or at very least, not grasp the significance of it.

He entered the room, towel on his shoulder, well-stretched and ready to perform.

“Miroku,” said the woman across the room, her hands folded over her chest.

“Sango, I presume,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “You are most certainly presumptuous.”

“Ah-”

“It is 7:20,” she said. “Are you having difficulties with your watch? As it is so terribly expensive, I would suggest you may have been ripped off.”

He glanced around the room. Padded floor. Padded melee weapons on the wall to his left. Windows to the right. Blinds pulled up – he noticed this now. Random customers working ellipticals switched attention between TV screens and the studio. He felt a bit … exposed.

“I'm so sorry,” Miroku said, not being sorry, and speaking with a tone that was insincere without being full-blown sarcastic. Being on time would be inappropriate; fifteen minutes late was a direct insult but twelve minutes late was an assertion of his dominance. Also, she'd just claimed his Cartier was counterfeit and that kind of low blow was something that would not stand.

“Of course you are,” Sango said. “Here.” She waved her hand at a spot near the east wall, at the corner where the windows separating the studio from the gym met. He obliged and stepped to that spot.

“I look forward to your-”

“Give me one hundred push-ups and one hundred squats, alternating sets of ten each,” she said.

“W-what?”

“Is that too much for you?” Sango asked.

“I mean, I could do ten, or even twenty...”

“One hundred,” she said. “If you have to switch to girl-pushups that's OK. I need you warmed up.”

“That's a warm-up? Good god, for what?”

She sighed heavily.

“I apologize,” she said. “We've clearly had a scheduling mistake. I only train high-level athletes. Ayame must have screwed up the booking. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in Kaede's class. She teaches an excellent water aerobics session.”

“Keep count,” Miroku growled.

It was the second pushup, or maybe the third, where he realized he needed a warm-up for this warm-up, but no matter. Ten pushups, ten squats, ten pushups, ten squats. Not too bad, but he found himself lagging on the second set. By set three his pushups were getting sloppy, his squats wobbly, and on set five his arms were noodles while his chest and thighs were just concentrated masses of pain.

Set six finally broke him. That moment of lying on the floor, hands in position, pushing hard against the ground while his chest did not move a fraction of an inch. But it was still a victory. Nearly twice his own personal best. And he knew from the start the task was impossible; no man could do 100 pushups and squats. Sango merely tweaked his pride, but he saw through it, and showed her the depth of his abilities. Gym patrons were gathering around the open windows of Studio B now. Excellent. Fifty situps and sixty-three pushups, in sets of ten, were surely a record for this gym.

“Good enough,” Sango said. “Let's get started.”

He found his feet grudgingly. The floor was very uneven and seemed to move back and forth like a boat riding the waves of an angry sea.

“I suppose we're staying with the illusion that routine was actually possible,” he said.

“Really, Miroku. What do you want out of this session?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't think I can say it any clearer,” Sango said. “What do you want? Do you want to better yourself? Physically? Spiritually? Mentally? Or do you want to just add a bit more polish to the mask you wear? It's a good mask, I'll admit, but you're an idiot to think it fools everyone.”

He understood the individual words as they came from her mouth, but combined together, it was unintelligible. A mask? What was she talking about?

He shrugged it off.

“I take that as tacit agreement; no man can do that routine you just laid out. Please stop wasting my time, Sango, and take this session seriously.”

“You really think that anything you cannot do is impossible, don't you, Miroku?”

“That's not what I'm saying-”

“You're already late for the session, and swaying on your feet so much I fear you will injure yourself unless I give you a good five or ten minutes to get yourself situated. Does that fancy watch of yours, with all its dials and shit, have a stopwatch function? Or does it just look nice, and tell you what time it is in cities you'll never see in person?”

“It … I mean, I think it can ...” He blinked, poking at the watch. It did indeed keep four timezones, but he had no idea which ones. There were three stems on either side of the dial, and in adjusting them he made the various hands spin about.

Sango placed her hands behind her head and stretched.

“God, you're useless,” she said. “Fine, look at that clock on the wall. When the little hand moves from eight to ten, that's ten minutes.”

“Sango, you are really-”

She pumped out ten pushups before he fully registered the movement, and then ten squats, and back again. By set four he began to hear chanting, and realized the walls of Studio B were surrounded by customers and employees. His prior trainer, Kagome Higurashi, caught his attention, as she began to jump up and down and scream. The shouts and cries of this impromptu audience soon merged into a single rhythm, a 4/4 time of “Go! Go! Go! Go!” and Miroku slowly realized he was not looking particularly good here.

One hundred pushups, one hundred situps, in alternating sets of ten, all in the span of eight minutes and 30 seconds or so. Sango was, to his credit, sweaty and winded, but by the last set the audience had become at least fifty people and the roar of enthusiasm made Miroku wish he could leave without having to weave his way through their numbers.

Sango caught her breath and drank heavily from a water bottle she had stashed in a corner of the room.

“Perhaps you were right, Miroku,” she said. “Perhaps no man could do that routine, and it was unfair to even ask someone so burdened by his sex. But let's move on. Are you ready for the sparring portion of our session?

Jesus fuck he was not.

“Regrettably, I ...”

“KICK HIS ASS SANGO!”

The eruption of cheers and chants made it hard to pin the origin of that outburst, but he suspected it was Kagome, based primarily on the fact she was now holding a 2 x 3 foot poster-board above her head, flat against the glass partition between the gym proper and Studio B, upon which was written, in neon pink and glittery sparkles, the words “KICK HIS ASS SANGO.”

His college education involved some Shakespeare; _Henry IV_ had some good quotes about valor, and how discretion was the better part of it. Another bard, Kenny Rogers, had similar advice about knowing when to fold, when to walk away, and when to run.

He slowly lowered himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged, as his thighs could no longer support his weight.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

The din outside the studio quickly became silent; he did not realize it was because of the look Sango gave them.

“You know you can just leave, right?” Sango asked. “This isn't Gitmo; nobody's going to actually hurt you. I mean, other than your pride, which is proper fucked.”

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “You're right, you're far beyond my level.”

“And Kagome?” Sango asked.

“Ms. Higurashi was – she is an excellent trainer. I was just too impatient. When I think back on it, she really brought me some real gains on strength training and cardio. And still … I made her uncomfortable. Deliberately, I realize now.”

He looked up. Sango's gaze was equal parts frightening and impenetrable. He turned to the partition, and the windows separating him and Sango from the bloodthirsty crowd. Kagome had tossed aside the sign, but stood there, her eyes boring into him, and in her gaze he saw every woman he had ever bedded, and more than that, every failed hookup, every recipient of his pickup artist routine, ever girl he “negged.” Every woman he had ever met, ever spoken to, ever seen or touched, was in that gaze. The full weight of all his transgressions fell atop him and drove him to the floor of Studio B. An epiphany came to him. A moment of perfect clarity. He was not a Player because there was no Game; women were actual people, and sometimes smarter than him. Better than him. What the everloving fuck was he doing with his life? Was his mother ashamed of him? Should she be?

“I'm sorry,” he repeated. “I'm a nice guy...”

“I know,” Sango said. “You are absolutely a Nice Guy. But that's OK. I think you might someday be an actual decent person if you really work at it.”

The crowd had mostly dispersed at this point; the show was over. The floor was soft and padded, and Miroku lay out on this floor, and pressed his cheek to the floor, and wished he had ever in his life pressed his cheek to the breast of a woman like this, and felt that casual intimacy, that perfect vulnerability. He thought about how nice it would be to wake up in a bed with a woman next to him, and not wish she was gone. To wake up to a woman in his bed and think, by god, I want to cook breakfast for her. To wake up to a woman in his bed and think, yes, I can do this, a hundred thousand times I want to wake up to this same person, and to know decade after decade will not change that want.

He found his feet about the time Sango collected her things; the words he meant to speak rattled around his brain, as he realized feeding her a line would not work, and he had to actually tell her something sincere, something real, something that made him vulnerable. But before he could formulate the words to make her fall in love with him, she embraced Kagome, and kissed her on the lips.

“I love you,” Kagome said.

“I love you more,” Sango said.

Miroku very casually leaned against the wall. A thought came to him, and this thought stayed with him for the rest of his life: he met a person who truly understood him, who fully and completely figured him out. And this person, who was most surely his soulmate, did not love him, and never would.

Miroku gathered himself, and collected his things from the locker room, and drove home. In his very expensive condo he poured himself a glass of very expensive Scotch, and then worked his way through his Little Black Book. He spoke his apologies to each woman, but also to their voicemails. More often than not, the woman who picked up was unemotional and robotic, simply telling him, “We're sorry, but the number you have just dialed is no longer in service,” and each time he argued, explained that he was more sorry still, and begged forgiveness, and each time there was the slightest echo, like someone was actually listening, ready to pick up if he said the right words, and each time there was a click and a disconnect.

Someday, somehow, he would find the right words. The magic spell to make the woman he loved love him back.

Someday.

END.

 


End file.
